Photo Credit: Laurence Barnes / CC by 2.0
A sexual assault lawsuit filed against Marilyn Manson (real name Brian Warner) in June of 2021 has been dismissed without prejudice after the plaintiff failed to respond to a court order.
Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha just recently signed off on the dismissal, reiterating that the counsel of the plaintiff, model Ashley Lindsay Morgan Smithline, had withdrawn from the case in October of last year. The court then set a Monday, December 5th, deadline for Smithline to file a notice detailing her substitution counsel or plans for pro se representation.
Predictably, given the dismissal, Smithline didn’t submit said notice by the deadline, nor had it been submitted as of yesterday. A Twitter account as well as an Instagram profile bearing the plaintiff’s name appear to have been deleted, and the alleged victim (who previously made the media rounds) doesn’t seem to have commented publicly on the dismissal.
Similarly, Manson – who was named in several other sexual assault lawsuits in 2021, one of which was tossed in May of 2022 – hasn’t yet responded to the dismissal news on social media. But Smithline’s complaint alleged that the Canton, Ohio-born musician had “developed an obsession with” her around the summer of 2010.
“Numerous” texts and social-media messages (Smithline claimed to have been modeling in Bangkok when first contacted by Manson) are said to have set the stage for the plaintiff’s traveling to LA in November of 2010. Smithline was purportedly under the impression that Manson would cast her in an Eli Roth-directed remake of True Romance.
Smithline likewise moved in (and began participating in “a consensual sexual relationship”) with the five-time Grammy nominee, according to her description of the events. “However, it quickly became apparent that consensual sex was not enough for Mr. Warner,” the original suit reads.
The plaintiff was allegedly sexually assaulted on multiple occasions, besides allegedly being cut with a knife (“the cuts drew blood and caused Ms. Smithline to go into shock”), struck, bit, whipped, branded, “brainwashed,” imprisoned (“Smithline was placed against her will in the glass enclosure in Mr. Warner’s room multiple times”), and “forced to do various jobs” for Manson.
“Ms. Smithline provided not only ‘commercial sex’ as legally defined, but also a variety of unpaid labor for Mr. Warner between November 2010 and January 2013,” the initial suit claimed, also touching upon the plaintiff’s use of drugs during the period. “This included serving and preparing food for Mr. Warner and his guests and being forced to show his friends and bandmates her naked breasts.”
Despite the allegedly unacceptable treatment that she is said to have endured from Manson, Smithline acknowledged that she’d traveled to his home “several times” until January of 2013, “flying back and forth to Los Angeles from modeling jobs in Asia.”
Smithline purportedly “continued visiting Mr. Warner due to the severe mental duress caused by Mr. Warner’s abuse,” her now-dismissed suit claimed.